A little blog about a little journey to make our little family bigger. Follow the story of two wives' experience with alternative methods to making a baby. Learn a little, laugh a little (God willing, a lot, sometime's Kate's game is off) and cross your fingers for a little plus sign.

Monday, September 30, 2013

Parents.com offers a witty list of 10 things you shouldn't ask a lesbian mom, which I'd like to share here as a friendly PSA to our loved ones about what you really should not ask us about our baby-making journey and our (hopeful/someday/pleasepleaseplease) baby.

1. Which one of you is the mother?

2. Who's the biological mother?

3. Where did you get the sperm?

4. Is the dad in your child's life?

5. What do you know about the sperm donor?

6. Isn't your child confused about what to call you?

7. Doesn't your child miss out on doing "dad" things, like playing ball and using tools?

8. What did you write under "Father" on your child's birth certificate?

I'm not sure if my jaw dropping to the table made it clear that this was a completely insane and inappropriate thing to ask us, and honestly I can't even remember how we answered. It was the first time someone we love asked us a truly offensive question, and unfortunately I'm sure it won't be the last time. But hopefully parents.com's "10 things you shouldn't ask a lesbian mom" can help.

Thursday, September 26, 2013

I'm going to be honest, I could probably name off every book I've ever read cover to cover. Not because I'm a bibliophile, but because I have a hard time reading. I WANT to love to read, but unless it's a teen dystopian book, a series on symbols/catholic corruption or anything by Lois Lowry ("Number the

Artist Rendering of Kate Attemptingto Read This Damn Book

Stars" is the best book ever) I probably Cliff Noted the crap out of it. I get distracted. So, to explain the title of this post... I was supposed to read the most boring book known to man (Flaubert's "Madame Bovary") in high school, but couldn't get past the ISBN number page at the beginning. I would only read this if placed in a situation where the options were: 1. Read this old long ass book or 2. Listen to Ann Coulter (which, by the way, the first options you get when you Google her name is "Ann Coulter racist", "Ann Coulter net worth"). So I 'Spark Notes'-ed it and gave it a witty new title- "My Damn Ovaries". Little did I know how relevant the facetious title would become to my own life. This brings us to the next step in OBM (Operation Baby Makin'). I know I take a while to make a point, but the journey is fun and I get you there eventually so shut up.

So, we last left off with the final tests done and we had an appointment with our reproductive doctor on Tuesday. The night before the appointment Meg and I were on a walk discussing what we thought we would cover in the appointment. After each test, the nurse or tech told me that everything looked good, so my guess was that we would get a ballpark date for our first insemination and get the form to order sperm. We both let our minds wander to the 'worse case' scenario which we thought would be the doctor requiring us to do a couple more months of tracking because my cycle is unpredictable. We couldn't imagine having to wait until month. Now, I know this blog was started for the purposes of providing information about same sex couples having a baby as well as a way to keep friends/family up-to-date (and for me to have an outlet for my wit so Meg doesn't have to hear the same jokes over and over again), but lez (see what I did there?) be honest- not everything is going to be rainbows, sunshine and Kristin Chenoweth. Forgive me for not diving into some things as much as others- and I bet you're probably grateful for that when it comes to the biology parts. Am I right, boys (wait- do we know any boys?)?

Here's the truth. Our appointment on Tuesday was hard to sit through. We sat down with the doctor and he began to go over some of the tests. It turns the techs and nurses were not quite telling us the whole truth. I do have a significant number of ovarian follicles (a good thing), but they were all around the outer area of the ovaries instead of in the center (a not so good thing). We were told that this is a classic symptom of PCOS, or Polycystic ovary syndrome. Other symptoms are difficulty losing weight and abnormal menstral cycles, both of which I experience. Other symptoms (that I don't have) are diabetes, high cholesterol, etc. Something like 1 in 10 women have PCOS, and plenty of them get pregnant, but there's no doubt that this makes things a little more...complicated.

The doctor took blood to test my hormone levels which will likely confirm the PCOS diagnosis. As I write this I am staring at my phone waiting for them to call to tell us the results. Either way, there is a plan in place to move forward. I personally feel that this isn't a huge blow as I don't have the other 2 symptoms that are more risks to health and the doctor didn't seem to present it as a big deal. However, and I'll try to keep this light, finding out there's yet another speed bump in our baby making journey (the most obvious being that we lack sperm!) I feel like this.

I was also told that there was a 'shadow' found on my uterus during the HSG (aka medical medieval Pilates in your bathing suit area) so we will have to 'Innerspace' me. If you haven't seen this cinematic gem get thee to a $5 bargain bin at your local car wash to see Meg Ryan in rare form.

So. In the next 3 weeks there will be some testing to make sure the 'foundation is solid'. This puts our first insemination off to at least November. We might post more about this in the coming days, but then again, we might not. It's hard, y'all.

But on a lighter note that means I get to enjoy the open bars to the fullest at the 3, count 'em, 3 same sex weddings we are attending in the next month.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Congratulations!Today you can predict.You're off to Great Places!To Pee on a Stick!You have a pricey device in your hand.You have a window of time.You will enter sketchy placesWith hopes of seeing more than 1 line.OH! THE PLACES YOU'LL GO! (...to take an ovulation test)You'll be on an airplane!You'll be a contortionist!People waiting will judge youYou, the TSA will blacklist.JetBlue Airplane

You'll do it at work.The last stall will be your lab.Your coworkers will thinkYour bowels need rehab.At Work: When you walk into the stall with OPK stick in hand & you bump into your CEO.

You will do it at a theater

Where you used to work.

With biddies and blue hairs

Around your stall they will lurk.

You'll be in an instanceWhere balance is key.Don't do as I didThat train porter is now damaged, yes sirree.High Speed Acela Amtrak Train and by high speed I mean warp speed taking every corner at the exact time you close the door

You may be out of the comforts of your own home.Remember to boost the shampoo, the conditioner and the comb.Word to the wise of the minibar where you may roam.Your hormonal state may cause you to eat that $40 Toblerone.Being on the road for work is beyond exhausting I must say,Beware of the handle to the left of the sink as it ends up being the bidet.Fancy Ass Hotel on a business trip

You will come to a place where the bathrooms look cryptic.

Not to mention the stalls look apocalyptic.

A place you could catch diseases that run the gambit!

Why does it look like a wet dog shook off, dammit??!

Penn Station

What it finally feels like to do the test in the comforts of your our own bathroom

So...be it a port-o, an outhouse, a latrineor a commode,Lines that look like SanskritYou'll sit and decode!Your loo is waiting.So go stand in line!Soon you'll see the happy faceAnd enjoy one last wine.

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

My 6th grade Geography project.We were asked to create our owncountry and show rivers, towns, hills.I made Streisland with theBay of Prince of Tides. #gay

Posted by Kate

As some of you know, I came out later than most of my homo friends (to be fair, most of my homo friends are Emerson College kids who were born from their mother's womb riding a unicorn with glitter flying out of their butt accompanied by a medley of Cher songs). If you're new to this blog or are stuck on the MBTA red line I'll just point you to a post on my other blog titled There's Are ALWAYS Signs: How to Tell If Your Child is Gayer Than a Clutch Purse on Tony Night. So. I dated men for some time. I am not a Gold Star Lesbian (click here if this isn't in your everyday vernacular). Add to it that we are in the final stages of searching for a sperm. Having to look at men, understand their family history, and imagine what our combined genetics might look like is bringing back dusty old memories of dates where my flirting was utter proof that I would have been a horrible actress. Imagine me, in a dress, flirting with a frat boy. Not. Pretty. Hil. Arious. We touched briefly on the path we were taking toward choosing a donor in a previous post (I Like My Men Like I Like My Beer: Chilled and in a Six Pack), but as we get closer to the place where we will have to narrow down "Mr. Tubular" we get their hair color, eye color, ethnicity, education, family history, hobbies... So Meg and I decided to tell this story like a game of "Guess Who?".

Kid, in our world it's ALWAYS a Mary.

We had several sperm banks to choose from, based on a list provided to us by our fertility clinic. One of the options (that we did not choose) is the California Cryobank which offers the option of searching for sperm by celebrity look-a-like. Want your sperm donor to look like Brad Pitt? No problem. Welcome to the vortex of time suckage as you hit up that site for hours. Some of the celebrity look-a-like options are fantastic, handsome, talented men I would LOVE for my kid to look like (Taye Diggs- we all dig you). Then there are some "celeb" donors that give you the same awkward feeling you get when you watch a drunk girl try to dance at a wedding.

Examples:
Ryan Lochte. This is all I can imagine:

Or Owen Wilson:

Or maybe on the positive side, dream of dreams, an NPH baby:

So, to give props to our town of Boston, let's say we chose to look at donor 132 *(number changed for privacy) who is described to look like Mark Wahlberg. His mini-bio reads: "With a list of hobbies that includes beat boxing..." We're just gonna stop right there. And for an additional $250 you can get a childhood photo and a voice recording. The last thing I want to know is if voice box matches the beat box.

In all honesty, we didn't go with California Cryobank because the celebrity look-a-like feature felt so cheesy. On top of that, they charge you for each and every little thing. Want a childhood photo? $50 please. Want to hear the man's voice (PS, no thanks)? That's $100. Personally, that didn't feel good to us.

Now back on the lighter side, let's take look at some of the donors that exist out there:

Brown Hair, O+, loves golfing.
Why did you decide to donate? Because I heard it was good money. And I want to spread my superior genes.

Kate and Meg: Our yeah, we can't wait to tell our future child this.

So picking our donor kinda feels like being set up on a blind date. But the best part is I don't have to make small talk with him, I don't have to pretend he's cute and more importantly I get the girl in the end.

If you’re anything like me, you‘d be walking to CVS in your pajamas after a stressful day (and a gin and tonic) to buy ovulation predictor kits (OPKs) for your wife. Wait…that’s not what most people do on Thursday nights?

So anyway, I walk into CVS and scan the aisle signs until I see “family planning.” That seems to be a natural place for OPKs to live, right? I walk by baby formula, baby thermometers, baby bottles and baby powder. Hmm…if you already have the baby, aren’t you kind of done with family planning?

It's a stretch to make this apply to scouring the aisles of CVS, but I (Kate) felt it needed to be on our site.

I come to the end of the aisle where I assume they must hide away the OPKs and right under the

“family planning” sign is, drum roll please…condoms. Now, I know I’m hardly an expert on condoms, but I at least understand that people use condoms when they’re planning NOT to have a family. The sign should actually read “Family Prevention.”

Kate's interpretation of what she thought Meg wanted to do to whomever designed the CVS layout.

In the end, I found the OPKs (which, by the way, are outrageously expensive), in the “Feminine care” aisle next to pregnancy tests, basal body thermometers and prenatal vitamins. Not that any of those things would be useful for family planning….

Friday, September 6, 2013

Hey kids. Today I went to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for my Hysterosalpingogram or HSG for short. I had done a little research in advance, through friends who had experienced this as well as on the web. And through my experience with this I want to tell any woman who is reading this to stop Googling. It is nothing but a recipe for confusion and disaster- that is unless it brought you here to this blog, then Googling is the best choice you've ever made. I had a myriad of experiential stories from friends from "meh, I went straight to work after" to "it will hurt like hell". I also tried to

look up the procedure on the web to see how people prepare- they told me to take 600mg of Advil. Have you seen me? I have more surgery scars on me than Michael Jackson (#toosoon). 600mg isn't going to touch me. Then I wanted to see how medical websites describes the procedure. Stop it. I don't know who lets WebMD still continue to exist on the interwebs, but they are probably the same people who invented Candy Crush (why can't I quit you?) or the people that keep saying, "You know that Nicholas Sparks book? Let's make that into a movie!".

So, I'll list here my experience, take it or leave it, but you know it's gonna have some good gifs so you might as well read on. When you first get called in by a nurse, you strip from the waist down and put on a hospital gown. Another of my favorite things- being naked from the waist down in a public

place. Not only that, they gave me one gown to put on where the ties are in the back and another to wear like a robe backwards so you don't have to walk around the halls pinching it closed like a dog chasing his tail. But on the second gown, they hadn't buttoned the parts at the top that actually form the arm holes. Now. I'm not an idiot. I have a degree from a solid college (that I'm still paying off and probably will until my own child goes to college) and work in a pretty challenging job. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how they snap together. I

ended up, in haste, throwing it around me like a matador. And, of course, when I get nervous I get chatty and the nurse complimented my sandals. I said, "Yeah, I wanted to wear something that complimented a hospital gown, but didn't say 'I'm trashy'". Then you go into an imaging room and climb up on a large X-ray bed. Then they put what feels like a brick wrapped in a thin sheet at the very small of your back in order to tilt your pelvis backwards. Then they tell you to put your feet on these little balls that kind of feel like stepping on a baseball directly on the arch of your foot. Now the next part, I'm not going to go into great detail, but basically they "Jack Cousteau" you (artist's rendering below). They dilate the cervix, insert a radio

active dye into your uterus and take xrays as they see it travel through to the fallopian tubes, which tells you that your baby makin' pipes are clear. Guys put on earmuffs for this part: The most painful part is the speculum. It feels like they are recreating the Holland Tunnel inside your body. The cramping from the dye being inserted into the uterus isn't that bad at all. In total the procedure probably takes about 4 minutes (but in all honesty it will feel as long at this:)

and you will leave feeling ok, but honestly, you'll just want to go home, put on your big girl sweats and eat cheese puff balls. Follow your instincts. I went back to work- asshat. The good news is that my parts are in working order. The bad new is that I screamed an expletive during the procedure that would make George Carlin blush.